The end is near

But the end of what?

A few pundits, even smart ones, seem to believe that we are reaching "the end of the liberal order” and that the “woke” age is about to be gone forever. Such type of analysis is interesting and often insightful, but… Honestly, I see no evidence of that.

Trump 2 has been such a disappointment (except perhaps in the art of trolling) that very few even of his most rabid supporters still believe he is playing “4-D chess”.

Tariffs, Greenland, now this ICE soap-opera. It's hard to see where it all will lead, except to more anger and division among basically everyone.

Is “woke" really dead? If anything, the youth is more liberal or “woke” than ever. Whenever I end up going to an event with mostly younger people, I see the same banners and ideas about feminism, multiculturalism, climate change, etc, etc, etc. In Spain, in Italy, in Germany, but also in the USA. Well, perhaps not in the U.S. hinterland, but otherwise, pretty much yes. Although it's true I haven't been in the U.S. for years.

Sure, the leftist discourse has been toned down in some aspects, but that is planned. It is pretty obvious by now that the overdrive of illegal migration and transgender policies during Biden's term was planned in order to have a pretend crackdown of it during Trump. This is how our rulers usually do it, they beat the drum so constantly about some extreme and often absurd cause, then people get so tired they are glad when an “opposition” figure appears to go the opposite way also in an extreme way. (In Europe it's the same, just with a few years of delay). Of course it doesn't mean that the “order” has died, because this (mostly fake) dichotomy is part of the “order”.

Bottom line is, I do not think the “liberal order” (you may also call it “new world order”) is going to end just like that. It is part and parcel of modernity. And with so-called “AI”, things are going to get worse than ever. One way or another, we will live in some sort of tech-dystopia — and whether it will be a “left-wing” dystopia or a “right-wing” dystopia is less important.

Already, some billionaires and their paid jesters are declaring that soon we “useless people” will not have access to “reality privileges”, and will live immersed in a mostly virtual and online world. Most of our interactions with will be online and more with bots than with real people — and the difference will be less and less, as bots will become more like people, and people, more like bots.

If we are lucky, we will be paid an “Universal Basic Income” for staying in our micro-apartments online playing video games or mining Bitcoin or providing all our data to our overlords (we will not be sources of energy like it was predicted in “The Matrix", but merely source of human data for “AI" and big companies), or any other activity that might be deemed useful or at least harmless for our masters, and of course without being allowed to post anything that might decrease our “social credit”. When we die (voluntarily, in a suicide pod), our organs will be sold to the highest bidder in a sort of “organ eBay”.

Okay, maybe I'm being a bit too dark now. I'm not in the best mood these days.

But I don't really see any solution except perhaps disengaging from everything. I personally try to read the news less and less, and I try to concentrate as much as I can in other more personal projects (although, lately, even those have been an abysmal failure).

In fact, I am considering whether continuing or not this Substack experiment. It seems to have failed as well, and I don't really like the platform. I started blogging maybe 20 years ago using Blogger, reaching a peak of thousands of readers somewhere around 2008. Good times.

But, since then, it's been all downhill, and while almost no one uses Blogger anymore, I kinda miss it. Or maybe I just miss the 2000s and the 1990s and the Internet of those times. I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear the bottom of my trousers rolled.

Substack also has the problem that — possibly because of the enmity between the various tech companies — its content is hard to find. If you google a Substack blog, it rarely appears in the first searches. In my case, my own website (where I republish some of these texts) appears, but this Substack site doesn't.

I don't even use the platform all that much, but I do read a few Substack authors, even if several of my favorite bloggers still use Blogger or have their own Wordpress site. Most of them are even older than I am. When you are old, it's hard to change.

Besides, I am tired of politics and news and world events, and I would like to write only about art, film, literature and travel. But not many people are interested in that, and even I get tired of it sometimes.

I think I will make a pause for a while, and then maybe start again in Spring, if I feel more motivated. Motivation was never my strong suit, and recent events haven't helped. But we will see.¹

Spring below the crypt below a church somewhere (I think San Clemente in Rome).

1. I was actually looking for an image of Spring (the season) on my computer, but the AI found me a picture of a water spring. And yes, now searches in your own computer are powered by “AI” and can identify the content of any image as you merely type the word. They will send all your photographs to the Google, Microsoft or Apple data center (depending on which computer or phone you use), where all its content will be identified and labelled. Welcome to the brave new world, bitch!!!